So, for Valentine's Day...

...MLW and I decided to give our love to the kitties at the AWLA shelter. (We're kinda not into the whole "You must buy a gift because Hallmark-says-so sorta" holidays... And yes, before anyone corrects me, yes, I know that Hallmark didn't invent the holiday.)

Interestingly enough, there's apparently a theme taking place on a grander scale...

2007: A Year in Review

The following was intended to be 2007's Xmas letter, but I got put in charge, and you know how those things tend to turn out... Thus, we sent NO cards this year (see? Told ya... so no need to be offended, we didn't send to anyone...) Anyway, for those of you that are actually curious as to what's happening in our little, localized section of reality, well, feel free to read on...

* * *

Well, 2007 was another busy year for us (isn't it always, though?). We started new projects, added to our family and traveled quite a bit.

We started a monthly movie night, with a full, old-fashioned schedule of cartoons, serials, and two features (sometimes classic, sometimes contemporary). The nights seem popular, and we certainly have enjoyed watching old favorites and experiencing new entertainment.

We welcomed JAM’s 1st Cousin-once-removed, Zach, to the world, and have been amazed at how quickly he’s grown (and grown and grown). By the holidays he was walking – sort of – and clearly has a mind of his own. Allyson and Ricardo will have their hands full with him!

We had the great excitement (Woo. Hoo.) of redoing our master bathroom, and having our pipes replaced. We now love our bathroom. The re-pipe was… challenging, and we got into a legal dispute with the company. But, thanks to a wonderful lawyer friend, we’re now done with them. (If you plan to have any plumbing done, please ask for the name of a company to avoid...)

We saw Phantom of the Opera, and Avenue Q. Both were wonderful, although in very different ways. Phantom was exciting and the special effects were wonderful (and we hadn't seen it in like 15 years...), Avenue Q was dirty and wrong and hysterical.

We went to not one but two comic conventions this year. New York ComicCon (we LOVE NY!) was huge and exciting, although bitter cold outside made traveling a little unpleasant (OMG it was cold! And so windy!). We stayed in Weehawken, and took the ferry across the river, met lots of interesting people, bought way too much stuff and in general had a great time. Philadelphia Wizard World (in June) was a lot of fun. The Reading Terminal Market provided wonderful lunches, and we got to see both the cheerleader from Heroes and Number Six from BattleStar Galactica. We continued our new "con hobby" of collecting art and again came away with large quantities of stuff.

We traveled to Philadelphia a second time to see the King Tut exhibit with Debbie and Jim. The exhibit was wonderful and our time with Debbie and Jim was, as always, enjoyable.

We also traveled to North Carolina to visit Jenny and Andy before they had their son (back in March). Andy took a group of us on a walking tour and we got to learn much about Durham’s history. We went to see the Lemurs, and ate gelato (Mmmm... gelato...), and had lunch with Brian and Katie.

For our anniversary we went to Niagara Falls. We stayed in a wonderful hotel with a view of the falls. It rained the first day there, so we did all the wet tourist stuff – the boat to the bottom of the falls, walking under the falls. We also went to the local zoo and saw a magic show (where we got our picture taken with a tiger!).

For the holidays we hosted Jennifer’s parents here. Allyson and Ricardo wanted Zach to spend his first Christmas at home, so we all stayed here. Allyson hosted Christmas Eve dinner and Jennifer hosted Christmas Day dinner, and good food was had all around. (After Xmas we went to NJ to see JAM's relatives.)

In October Jennifer left her job of six years and took a position at the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy. She’s the Manager of Information Services, essentially the entire IT department, so is learning a lot about everything related to computers. An office with a window certainly is a step up and having budget control is fun.

Jonathan is still the President of the Art Deco Society of Washington, although he did not stand for re-election so is stepping down in January. Jennifer is still the secretary of the home owners association, and still enjoying the interpersonal drama. We both are volunteering at the Alexandria animal shelter, working as cat companions. Spending two hours a week petting cats is much more relaxing than either of our jobs (or other volunteering work...) As an outgrowth of that work in November we fostered four kittens. None of them had been socialized, so we spent several weeks convincing them that people are actually pretty cool. In the end we gave three back, and kept a little girl (totally didn't see THAT coming...) So Loki now has a little sister named Morrigan. He’s taking the changing fairly well, although is clearly upset that she’s touching all his stuff and doesn’t let him nap as much as he’s used to. She believes 3am is the best time to run around and play, and he believes that 6am is the best time to beat her up. So far there has been no blood or broken bones, although several tufts of grey fur have floated past.

Stay in touch in 2008!

[Please note: for those interested in such things, I highly recommend looking at the entire set of photos on the fliker account -- we linked to as many as we could, but there's many, many more...]

Some of you may find this dry...

...or boring. But I think sometimes people forget the importance of the 4th. And this was a fascinating analysis that MLW found.

And onto 2007...

And a thrilling Happy New Year to one and all.

As I may or may not have mentioned last year, I've always been somewhat ambivalent about New Year's. It's not terribly exciting to me, I don't really see the point in celebrating what is essentially an arbitrary start point on the calendar (which is also a human construction). I mean, if anything, one's birthday is the beginning of the next new year (for you, anyway).

Invariably this time of year also means a bunch of folks doing columns, filing reports, etc. on New Year's Resolutions. As you might guess from what I said in the previous paragraph, I'm not a huge believer in these either, but for some reason this year I happened to assess things all at once, and at this time of year (perhaps it was in the writing of the last post/Xmas letter).

So then, without further ado, or much fanfare, herewith are my...

Resolutions for 2007:

1) Do a better job of staying in touch with my out-of-state friends. While I have lived in the Commonwealth for 11.5+ years now, I still consider myself as being "from New Jersey." I have many friends and associates in the Garden State still. I also have friends in other states scattered around the seaboard and country. And the fact of the matter is, I've become a lousy communicator. I used to be a compulsive communicator and somewhere along the way, I got out of the habit. I carry a cellphone, I have multiple e-mail accounts, and I have a couple of blogs. So I know my intent is there. But somehow I stopped keeping in touch with folks the way I used to. Could be the geography, could be my "focus issues," could be the simple fact of Life's inertia. Doesn't really matter why. I'm going to try to do a better job of keeping in touch with those farther away. So expect a call or an email. Soon.

2) Devote at least one day a month to myself -- reading, writing, drawing, whatever. It seems that I never have enough time. This is, I'm sure, a common enough problem, made perhaps slightly more acute by my particular quirks. But even after spending six months off (while I was job searching), even though I had three weeks between one new job and the second (better) new job, I still never managed to spend a day reading comics. Or writing -- I never write anymore... well, just this thing, and we know that's more rambling. I've been trying to learn to draw for many, many years now ("trying" here defined as "spending money on books and supplies, even sometimes carrying places with me, but never actually investing any time doing it"). I owe it to myself to actually spend a minimum of one day a month on myself (and no, laundry doesn't count... it has to be something creative.)

3) Do something about this mass forming around my waistline... So there's this soft, squishy stuff forming around my waist, just above my hips. And curiously all of my pants seem to have shrunken at the same time (which means the dry cleaner AND me have both made simultaneous mistakes.) Fact of the matter is, my legendary metabolism is finally slowing down. And I kinda liked my waistline where it was. So a little more attention must be spent on getting to the gym. And working ab's, I guess...

4) Try to post to this blog (and the other one) more frequently. While my stat's indicate I've averaged more than one post a week, it hasn't occurred in such a regular fashion. More like a bunch at once and then a long gap of nothingness. And I'm really going to try to override my obsessiveness, and not wait until I can do "the perfect post" with all the links and colors and bells and whistles and whatnot. There are so many off-the-cuff posts that never happen(ed) because I didn't "have time" to do it. Which isn't true -- I just didn't have time to make it "just so." One of the many epitaphs of my life.

So, there you are. I think four is enough. That allows me to mess up one a quarter, before I've failed to achieve them all. I mean, if Ultimate Brian can't make it work, what chance does someone as undisciplined as myself stand...

More to follow.

2006 in review

The following is an edited version of the Holiday Letter MLW and I sent out this past year, put into blog-code as necessary (which reminds me... I need to update the scorecard in a big way...)

2006 seemed to have a theme of Change. While many things stayed the same, we enjoyed many new things as well. The year began with JAM still unemployed (since Nov. 2005 – those of you who read the blog know this painfully). Curiously, this wasn’t quite as stressful to either of us as we’d thought it would have been.

In January, we headed south to North Carolina (the hurricane state!), where we witnessed the union of ToasterGirl (MLW’s former roommate) and GPSBoy(another Drewid of our acquaintance) in a moving Quaker ceremony in Durham, followed by a delightful reception at the oddly named Tobacco Warehouse. While in Durham we were able to take in some of the city’s sights and also visit with Ultimate Brian & Penultimate (?) Katie (still more Drewids… who knew the area was full of ’em?) And best of all, JAM didn’t use any days off…

February was very full (as it tends to be) for such a short month. We made our annual trip to DC’s Chinese New Year parade to celebrate the year of the Dog (woof!). Following that we had a small-scale birthday gathering for JAM, which was preceded by Birthday SNOW! (It is such a rarity in Virginia!!). Certainly not the worst way to greet 35. This, in turn, was followed by a visit from the GSM. Sadly, they were both pretty ill, thus we have declared a moratorium on birthday visits (or at least visits during Winter Olympic years, since the prior one in 2002, resulted in a broken hot water heater and a serious cold for JAM). Around the same time, Eva was in town for a church music conference, and we were able to visit with her and catch up.

March found MLW summoned for Jury service. Like a teeny-tiny minority of Americans (which JAM is happy to consider himself among), MLW is one of those rare few who was actually looking forward to jury service. Sadly, each day as she checked to see if she was called up the next day, the court was closed. She was very disappointed.

April found us in NJ (for our first visit of 2006) to help JAM’s Gram celebrate her 91^st birthday and catch up with the folks. Before we left town, JAM’s high school friend thefirstNoel came to town for a conference, and we were able to have dinner together before she fled back to lands northwards. On the way home, we got to meet Son-of-a-JADO for the first time -- What a cute and drooly child.

In May we made our next visit northward to mark the first communion of MLW’s Godmother’s grandson Joey – who does a great (the late) John Denver (?! - he sang "Rocky Mountain High," but then you know how the lids today love their John Denver...) impression. We also got to see the in-law’s first apartment (which was effectively the first place that MLW ever lived). Oh, yeah, also in May, JAM got a job at a small IT consulting firm in DC. Before he started he spent the last weekend at Six Flags America with ODFA.

The (fortunately unseasonably cool) month of June found us celebrating the wedding of the Huge’s in beautiful outdoor setting in Centreville, VA (wow! A wedding we didn’t really didn’t have to travel for – we love those weddings most of all!) While the promised fireworks between certain participants never materialized, the weekend gave us an opportunity to catch up with various and sundry New Jerseyians of our past association. Later in the month, MLW celebrated her birthday with friends and the in-law’s came to visit. We visited the WWII Memorial, and enjoyed DC despite the summer heat.

In July, Drewids OragamiSlayer and Tina (who live out in Fairfax) invited us to join them at a performance of the RSC (the Reduced Shakespeare Company) in their still funny, no matter how many times we’ve seen it, The Complete History of America: Abridged. Dinner out with friends and an evening of laughs are a wonderful way to pass the time. JAM’s cousin A and (her husband)R announced they were pregnant, and JAM has been steeling himself to be a first cousin once removed.

In August, we had our first ever overnight visit by a family. Mr. Township Manager, HLWJ, and cute as a button Sabina came to visit on their way back to NJ from Williamsburg. While our house is certainly not childproof, we are happy report that everyone left intact. While it was a short visit, it was a fun one.

September went by without much event, while JAM decided he needed to get a(nother) new job, as the one at [company deleted for legal reasons] was just not working out. We tried to have many dinners with all our local friends, so had lots of good food and great conversations.

October was a month where a whole lotta stuff happened. First – on our 8^th wedding anniversary – JAM decided to give notice to the company he’d been working for (for about five months). While he gave 2.5 weeks notice, they decided he could leave that day. By the time MLW arrived to drive JAM home he was waiting in the lobby chatting with the security guards. That night he addressed the membership of the Art Deco Society of Washington, giving the first “state of the society” address in several years. The next day he received a job offer from Plateau Systems, LTD. – one of two offers he would receive that same week – and after some thought decided to accept it. Also, in October we were able to finally catch up with the O’Ciommo Ninja clan and then met up with the JADO’s at the Philadelphia Zoo, where much fun was had by all and many photos were taken. The following weekend, we went off to Staunton, VA where we saw not one but three Shakespeare plays at the Blackfriar’s Playhouse. On the way back, we drove along the scenic Skyline Drive and enjoyed the fall foliage (also, many photos were taken). While this was the first year in a while that we did not have our annual Halloween Gala, we did have the annual neighborhood Trick Or Treat block candy give-away (yeah, the name really sings). It was also JAM’s first day at his (new) new job.

As November came around, we found ourselves starting the month with yet another trip to the zoo, this time the National Zoo and this time with friends OriginalWeb and CH. Later in the same month, we went up to NJ yet again, this time for MLW’s father’s “retirement party” (MLW’s dad has been retiring for the entire 15 years JAM has known her…) Since we were up anyway, we decided to join in-laws and the GSM for day before and Thanksgiving for much, much eating. We were able to catch up with Mr. Township Manager & family, and with college friend GWEK, and with high school friend Jeannine.

And so December found us in the midst of our usual holiday madness. We had MLW’s work holiday party (first time I’ve had my picture taken with Santa in about… um, I’m going to guess 25 years...), my work party where I ran into Chuck Schmoyer from West Milford Twp High School (Freebird!) and of course, our own annual holiday gala, that this year featured snow. Yes, snow. Even if we had to make it ourselves. The holidays themselves involved a short trip northwards to NJ, and while they involved the third annual Xmas Eve Morning Brunch (a chance for us West Milford ex-pat’s to catch up) it was somewhat muted due to a family sitch that I won’t get into here.

So the year was filled with new beginnings, and new opportunities, but also filled with old friends and the best traditions.

Happy Holidays!

Let there be peace on earth, but most especially let there be peace for each of you
(and perhaps a little left over for each of us).

-- J & J

So that's the letter. Back in a day or two with what's in store for 2007!

What's in Your Wallet?

No, wait. I meant, what's in your Xmas Stocking...?

Your Christmas Stocking Will Be Filled With Coal

You haven't been *that* naughty this year Santa is just screwing with you

What Will Be In Your Christmas Stocking?

Well, I can't say I'm surprised...

Twas the Night Before...

...the Night Before Xmas and all through the hotel... Well, I dunno. Sometimes you start something and then it just turns out to be a sentence.

I wish I had more time to blog lately. So many things I have told y'all about yet. MLW's work party, my work party (and getting called up by the CEO, and running into Chuck Schmoyer from the one and only West Milford Twp High School). Then there's the new project I've been assigned at work and the ups and downs of that.

But I don't have the energy to go into all that right now. So instead, I'm just going to suggest you check out this entry at MG's Stripes and Plaids, which took some computer sleuthing through the archives to run down for her. (Pause for a moment and contemplate how much computer technology changed since 1992. I had to use two machines just to get it into a modern storage media...) Anyway, it was worth it, as it's still one of the funnier Xmas pieces I've ever read.

So, Happy Holidays, MG. And the rest of you folks. And to all... ah, you know the rest...

Jack-o-lantern, geek 70s style...

Just a quick post today, as I'm fatigued from the preparations that went into the monthly poker night...

So I leave you with this tidbit, sent in by alert reader SQ. I would go ahead and try it if not for the lack of pumpkin... and electronics skills...

More later.